Forgotten Wounds
by LittleGreenWoman
Summary: Klangst, kinda abstract. Lance makes the ultimate sacrifice, knowing nobody will even remember his heroics. He is ready to move on and let go, but even in his ignorance, Keith is not. UPDATE: changed from 1st person to 3rd person, since I decided to continue and 1st person did not fit anymore. Irregular updates, because honestly I have no idea where I am going with this weirdness.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: As you may have guessed, I don't own Voltron. This drabble was written in first person, but changed to 3rd person to fit possible future chapters. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, give it a reaction, it makes my day :)**

* * *

Keith has the strangest dream.

He is in a field of tall, green grass; warm in the evening sun. The grass is wet, and the air smells like rain.

There is a boy in the field, olive skinned with messy brown hair and eyes bluer than cornflowers, bluer than the bluest skies, wearing a melancholic smile.

He doesn't know who this boy is. But in the dream, he does.

The boy sits on the grass, his faraway gaze towards the sun. Keith walks to him, his heart in his throat, his insides twisting with fear, with sorrow, with… Love.

In his dream, he loves that boy so much, he can feel it not only in his chest, but in every hitched breath he takes, in every step that carries him closer, on his fingertips when he reaches out. The boy turns his gaze to him, the tear rolling down his cheek glinting in the sun.

Keith cannot bear it.

"Lance," he chokes out, unshed tears of his own stinging his eyes. "Lance…"

The boy, Lance, stands up, moves close to him and caresses his face, so light as if he is afraid Keith would break. Maybe he would.

Lance embraces him, hiding his face in the crook of Keith's neck. His skin is warm against Keith's, and his tears are cold. Keith holds him tight, or holds onto him, he doesn't know. He only knows that he will fall if he lets go, he will drown, he will break, he will be lost and incomplete.

"Keith," Lance whispers, his breath fanning Keith's neck. Keith's name on his lips sounds like a hidden prayer, wistful, sacred, cherished.

He moves his hands from Keith's waist to the sides of his shoulders, and lifts his head to look at him.

Keith can feel the void in his chest, the dread in his bones. He knows what Lance will say. They have done this before.

"You have to stop this," Lance says. "You have to stop coming here."

Keith looks down, squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. "I can't," he says. "Don't ask me to do that. This is all I have left." _Of us. Of you._

Lance cups his face with both hands. Every little touch sparks a cell into life, makes him feel alive, hyperaware and vulnerable.

He leans in and kisses the side of his mouth, leaving Keith craving for more.

"Forget me," he says softly. "You have to forget me."

Despair runs through Keith's veins, tainted by anger with each heartbeat. It is so familiar, as if he has been angry with this boy many, many times. In his dream, he already knows he had.

He lets the fury take over. How can Lance even ask him that? How, after everything?

He grips Lance's hands, making him wince, making himself wince in return but he doesn't loosen his hold.

"Never," he hisses. "Never, you hear me?" His voice breaks at the last words with a sob, rage abandoning him as fast as it came, leaving only the desperate heartache behind.

He tries to breathe in, but he can't. He lets go of Lance's hands, and clutches his shirt, doubling over as he wheezes. Lance reaches out, concern and agony in his eyes. Keith takes a step back, lets himself drop on the ground and starts sobbing.

He hears the rustle of the grass between his sobs as Lance sits down next to him.

"I am sorry," Lance says. "I am so sorry. But Keith, you gotta let me go."

"No," Keith says stubbornly. Lance laughs at that. God, he has missed that sound so much. How could he ever forget?

"You are the only one left," Lance says, his voice bittersweet. "Keith, if you keep doing this, how can I be at peace?"

"How can _I_?" Keith snaps. Lance, the boy who constantly tried to be the center of attention, tried to be seen, noticed, acknowledged by any means necessary; asking to be forgotten as if he had never existed.

As if they had never fought with each other, and side by side against their enemies. As if they had never become friends, tentatively; as if they had never grown even closer. As if Keiths's lips never had found his under the stars one night, after he just couldn't take anymore. As if he had never tasted the salt on Lance's skin, as if they had never came undone in each other's arms.

Lance is asking him to forget, as if they had never loved each other with all that they had.

How can Keith just forget?

Lance moves behind him, pulling Keith's back to his chest. He clasps his hands around his stomach and perches his chin on his shoulder. The ground is cold and Keith's clothes are getting damp, but the smell of earth and trampled grass and Lance is so heady, he cannot move.

"Look up," Lance says. He does. The sun is sinking in a sky of pink, red and fiery orange. His tears have stopped. He turns around and kisses Lance. It is so soft, and so slow, because he doesn't want it to end. He wants time to stop, so he can stay there, in that moment, forever. No matter what Lance says, he will keep coming back. He will never let go.

Lance's hands are in his hair as he kisses Keith back and he lets out a chuckle against his mouth.

"Mullet," he whispers. "Wake up."

Keith wakes up with dried tears on his face, and a stabbing ache in his heart, clutching a blue crystal.

 _Lance._

He tries to hold on to the dream, to remember, but it is already fading, until it is gone and he is left with the void in his heart.

* * *

The light is blinding. Lance tries to move forward, but the pressure is like a strong wind and he can barely make an inch to the well of light in the center of the room, endless, overflowing, ever-changing.

He can feel Red growing restless with every step he manages to take. _It's alright_ , he tries to soothe her, or himself. He can hear the muffled screams of his team and the roars of the lions behind the curtain of light.

Suddenly the witch appears in front of him, an illusion, yet too realistic. Her yellow eyes glow as she lets out a crazed cackle.

"What do you think you can accomplish?" she snarls. "I will devour all! I win!"

"No," Lance finds himself saying. His voice rings foreign in his ears, almost mechanical. "We will stop you. We know how."

The witch's smile falters.

"You," she hisses, "You can't do anything on your own. You are cursed, divided, trapped! You penance is not over, beast!"

It is clear Haggar is not talking to him anymore, but at the same time she is. Lance hears his voice responding.

"You know nothing, druid," he says. "Your knowledge of us is still lacking. You shall never find what you seek."

The illusion of Haggar wavers. "You may know what it takes," she says. "Does he?"

Lance knows she is talking about him. He feels a chill to his bones. He turns around and looks at the vague shapes behind the invisible wall that separates them.

His mind is suddenly flooded with images. Haggar, absorbing quintessence from worlds, leaving them empty, lifeless husks in her wake. Images of chaos and the fight for survival. Images of people turning against each other in their suffering, civilizations destroying themselves long before the witch does it for them.

And then… Image of himself walking to the well of light. No more suffering, no more chaos. Because they never come to pass. Because Lance stops it, right there, right then. There is only peace.

The witch moves in front of the well of light, trying to shield it with her non-corporeal body.

"You will vanish," she says. "You will be shred apart!" The illusion comes closer. The yellow eyes search inside Lance's soul, and find what they are looking for. The witch grins. "You will be erased from existence," she sings.

"You will be forgotten."

Lance closes his eyes. He hears the paladins calling his name. One voice, louder than the others.

 _Keith._

The lions whine and whimper in his mind. They know what they ask of him. So does Lance.

"But they will live," Lance says.

The witch's eyes widen as she bares her teeth like a cornered beast. Lance moves towards the light.

He can hear them clearly now, his team. They know what Lance is about to do. They beg him not to do it. Lance hears Pidge's quivering voice as she pleads, and Hunk's sob. He hears Allura begging to take his place. He feels Shiro's guilt and helplessness as he punches the curtain of light over and over, and Coran's sorrow and acceptance. And he hears Keith. Furious and desperate, his screams break Lance's heart into pieces.

Lance remembers that night, side by side, watching the stars.

 _"We can wish all we want, but our hearts don't really leave us a choice in the matter do they?"_ Lance had said. _"After all, who wouldn't want to fall for someone who is convenient? It would be so easy… But I guess it isn't supposed to be easy. Someone who has the power to tear your soul apart and bring it back together can't be easy, but maybe it shouldn't be anything less than that."_

And Keith had looked him in the eyes, charged with a mess of emotions, sending shivers up and down his spine. When Keith kissed him, Lance had understood nothing about this would ever be easy, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

But now, Lance is about to undo it all. A world without him sounds much better than a him without Keith.

 _They will live._

Lance wipes his tears and stands tall. The lions' thoughts flow into his mind; grieving, but proud. Lance sends one last thought their way to deliver, the most cliché, the most precious.

 _I love you._

He walks into the light.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I am very loosely using the original anime's origin story for Voltron (Beast King GoLion), and I still don't know how this will go.  
**

* * *

It is one of those days.

Keith spends the entire day with the feeling of something, maybe a song, maybe a single word on the tip of his tongue, but it never comes to him.

The world feels wrong. Lately this keeps happening and Keith knows he is not the only one.

Once in a while he sees it in their faces as well, a distant look in Allura's eyes, a sudden pause from Hunk after he announces he made cookies, a snarky comment from Pidge or a secretly fond smile from Shiro which soon dissolve into confusion, or Coran opening his mouth to say something happily, but stopping as he shakes his head.

Something is off. Something is missing, ever since they defeated the druid. But no one talks about it.

He keeps going back to that day. The day Haggar gave herself to quintessence, letting go of her physical body in hopes of ascending. Ascend to what or where, Keith has no idea.

He remembers finding the witch and the wave of energy that hit them, which broke Voltron apart to the lions. The druid was cocooning herself in a dome of quintessence, and they were out of time.

Red was the fastest, so Keith charged and made it into the dome before it was too late. Others tried to follow, but they couldn't breach the wall that closed behind him.

Now that he thinks about it, maybe Keith should have waited. Maybe they could have formed Voltron again and tried together. But he reckons the risk was too big for second thoughts, as he doesn't really recall much of the battle. Only that it was difficult to move, but he had to walk into the well of light, which he did. And just like that, it was over.

Haggar was gone. The quintessence was dissolved and dispersed back to its origins. Keith still thinks with some disappointment that it was quite anticlimactic.

He is also somewhat bothered that nobody seems to think his partial loss of memory is significant.

But what Keith remembers with the most clarity is noticing the small blue crystal glimmering where the well of light used to be.

Keith took it with him, but never said a word to the others about it. He still keeps it on him at all times.

He can't explain it.

Sometimes it feels like the colors around him are muted, duller than how they are supposed to be. The crystal makes them a little brighter. At least, that's how it feels to him.

He should probably tell others. But he is not sure that he will.

* * *

The castle is silent. Everyone always seems busy with something. Keith is used to solitude, and he likes the quiet, so it doesn't make sense why this silence is bothering him.

It feels like they are falling apart. There is still a lot to do, people to help; but after Haggar's defeat Keith feels that they have lost their purpose. They have lost what was keeping them together.

And it hurts, because they were supposed to be family. Keith rarely allows himself this thought.

He misses the laughter, which they used to manage at the bleakest of times.

He makes his way to his lion as his hand finds his pocket, fingers wrapping around the crystal.

Red is no better, she has been moody too, though Keith assumed it was the lack of action.

He sinks in his seat, opening his mind for her thoughts to meld with his.

"What is happening to us Red?" he asks.

He is startled as her intensity washes over him. He feels like drowning, wave after wave of emotions hitting him before he can catch his breath. She feels so much, and the images he gets make a puzzle of million pieces, all scattered haphazardly.

He sees countless wars, victories tainted by loss. He feels a hunger for power, and the losing battle to not give in. He feels the scorching hatred, fury, but also the soothing pride, love and joy.

Keith cannot even identify tens of others, as they bubble in a cauldron on their way to becoming a maddening, awful concoction. Keith is familiar with the taste of it.

A sharp pain shoots through his temples as he recognizes the grief. It is so deep that it hurts like his heart is pumping thorns through his veins instead of blood. It is powerful, debilitating and older than time itself. There is no comfort to be found in it, as it is laced with regret and guilt.

Keith has mourned before. He knows loss.

But this time, as Red slowly retreats from his mind, Keith is left with mourning a loss he never suffered.

He opens his eyes as he feels something warm trickling down his nose. He wipes it with the back of his hand, and stares at his blood.

"What are you?" he whispers to his lion in astonishment.

Red doesn't reply. Keith isn't sure if she even knows the answer.

* * *

The boy sits on the warm white sand by turquoise waters, allowing the cool lazy waves to splash over his bare feet. The sunlight reflects off the waves, glittering like diamonds.

The boy doesn't have many memories, but he knows he has never felt this connected to anything before. As far as he is concerned, he is one of the grains of the sand, or a drop of the sea.

Happy isn't the right word for how he feels. There's no excitement, or any sort of anticipation. It is just calm, as if his existence flows in the right direction, without resistance, without conflict. He belongs.

It is perfect. Almost.

Because a piece of him, a piece so minuscule that it should be of no significance calls for him, constantly. It is a muffled voice, barely there. But it _is_ there.

It is not bothersome as such, but like a faint itch one cannot scratch. Easy to ignore.

If the boy focuses on it, it takes him away from this flow, this connectedness. It sets him apart, gives him a name, makes him an individual. It is lonely, and painful.

So the boy ignores it, until he hears the approaching footsteps. He looks up to see a creature, enveloped in light, standing before him.

The creature takes a form similar to the boy; a pale woman with flowing silver hair and lavender eyes that are almost transparent. She has glowing markings under her eyes of the same color. It is a creature of beauty, the boy thinks as the woman smiles at him.

"Are you lost?" she asks. Her voice resembles wind chimes in a soft breeze.

The boy wants to say no, but now he is not so sure.

"I don't know," he says. "Am I?"

She looks into his eyes, searching. "No," she finally replies. "You are loved, my brave boy. It is your anchor." She touches his face. "I too was loved. Am loved," she corrects. "And I too, am tethered here. It is good to have company, though I wouldn't wish this fate on anyone."

"And what fate is it?" the boy asks.

"Spending forever longing for something just out of your reach," she replies. "Maybe I didn't, but you deserve better, child. He should let you go." She pauses. "But he won't," she adds fondly.

The boy's heart flutters and hurts in his chest, as a memory crawls back into his mind and he can almost feel the warmth of the arms around him, the tingling of his skin as dark hair tickles his cheek.

"Can you remember yourself?" the woman asks.

The name rolls off his tongue with ease. "Lance. My name is Lance."

"Nice to meet you Lance. I am Oriande."


	3. Chapter 3

Lance stares at his feet, watching the water receding, smoothing the sand left behind. "Oriande," he repeats, and a flicker of recognition shines in his eyes. "Wait, I thought Oriande was this magical place of alchemy or whatever, guarded by monstrosities!" He smiles as he recalls Allura emerging victorious, suddenly more proud of his friend than he had been back then.

"Monstrosities?" Oriande asks, lavender eyes indignant. "I beg your pardon, but Oriande is a place of beauty and grace."

"So," Lance says, furrowing his brows in concentration, "You are a place?"

"Oh no, but the place is named after me, if I must say," Oriande beams. "We built it to teach our children our ways…" She pauses, her face devoid of the childlike excitement it wore a second ago. "We have failed to understand how easily mortals can be corrupted, and how fast corruption can spread."

She stands up and starts walking along the beach. Lance follows after her.

"We have paid the price of our arrogance," she says. "We are paying still."

"Wait, are implying you are immortal? Are all Alteans immortal? How old is Coran!"

Oriande suddenly stops, wincing as if she's in pain. "But I am not… _Altea_ n," she clarifies. "It is such an old and long story, dear boy. We lost so much. Altea…" She pauses again. "Was our chance to atone. We failed, yet again. And it pains me to see that you were asked to carry such a burden, because of _our_ mistakes."

"I saw what would happen," Lance says. "When I was looking into the quintessence well. Was that real?"

Oriande nods. "It was. It almost happened once before, another lifetime," she absentmindedly clasps her hands over her chest before she continues, "another tainted soul. It took sacrifice then as well." She reaches out and lifts Lance's chin up. "What you did… That was not an easy choice to make, brave one. Though our circumstances are not the same, I know that from experience."

Lance recalls the visions, all that he loves slowly dying, drained away. "It was not a choice at all," he responds.

"The boy calls for you," Oriande says.

"I know."

"Will you answer?"

Lance takes two steps into the sea, allowing himself to be soaked from the waist down.

"That's not a choice either," he replies.

Oriande smiles as Lance disappears. She grabs a handful of sand, squeezes it and opens her palm.

She looks at the tiny crystal she has created before she blows on it and it crumbles, scattering the glittering specks in the air.

* * *

Keith wakes up in his shack, the strange energy vibrating in his mind. He doesn't even think as he jumps off the couch, puts on his boots and grabs his jacket. Maybe today is the day he will find it.

He opens the door, expecting the familiar dry heat, but the cool air and smell of wildflowers greet him instead. It is pitch black outside, but Keith could swear he saw the sunlight when he woke up.

He steps out, and it is clear what's under his feet is not the sandy ground he is used to, it is too soft. For some reason, he is not alarmed. He takes a step forward.

It is lighter outside now, and Keith can see the tall trees around him. He looks back, but his shack is nowhere to be seen. It doesn't matter. All he needs to do is to follow the energy. He needs to find it.

But…

He had already found it, hadn't he? They had found it together, he remembers. He remembers long, tan fingers brushing against the cave wall and bringing it to life. He remembers the awe he felt as he first laid his eyes on the blue lion, and the pang of jealousy when she responded to…

 _Lance._

He needs to find Lance.

His steps are faster now, and he would break into a run if the scenery around him didn't shift constantly, disorienting him.

"Lance!" he calls, panic rising inside him. What if this is it? What if he is gone, and Keith can never see him again? What if he wakes up now and forgets, never to remember?

He holds on desperately to what he remembers. A pensive look, when Lance doesn't think anyone watches. A hand on his shoulder that grounds him. A soft, secret smile. The anger, when Keith was a little careless.

 _"What. Were you thinking," Lance seethes as he gets in Keith's face._

 _Keith doesn't back down. "I was thinking we had one chance, and I took it!" he shoots back._

 _"It was not worth the risk!"_

 _"That is not your call!" he yells, leaving out the part that he got an earful from Shiro on it as well. "And it worked!"_

 _"And what if it didn't?" Lance says through his teeth, his voice shaky. "What if we lost you?" he adds softly._

 _Keith is taken aback. "I…" he stammers, but can't finish the thought. What if they lost him? Would that matter? Would that matter to Lance? He takes a step back, and Lance takes a step forward._

 _"You are a part of this team," he says. "When will you see that we care? You are family! You are my…" He stops, confused. "You are…"_

 _Keith reaches out and lays his hand on Lance's armored chest. He doesn't know what he is doing._

 _Lance looks down to his chest, then into his eyes._

 _Keith withdraws and storms off. Lance doesn't follow. He stands there, brows pinched, lost in his own thoughts._

 _Keith's heart is pounding against his rib cage. They care. They are family. Lance is angry for his sake, because he doesn't want to lose him._

 _Keith is scared, but he knows he would find the joy if he peels away the fear._

"Lance!" he shouts again. This time he is in the castle and his voice echoes off the empty halls. _I will not forget. I will not forget. I will—_

"Did anyone tell you how stubborn you are?"

Keith's shoulders sag with relief as he sees the boy standing at the door, arms crossed. His amused tone and the crooked smile don't match the look in his eyes.

"So I've been told," Keith replies. He is suddenly unsure if he's allowed to touch Lance, if this boy is _his_ Lance. But then Lance walks to him and pulls him into a hug, erasing any shred of doubt.

Keith hugs him tighter, clinging to his hoodie. He feels like crying, shedding all the tears he was denied when they lost him. "Don't ask me to forget," he pleads, and feels Lance letting out a sigh.

"Okay," he replies as he removes his arms from around Keith. "I won't." He laces his fingers with the dark haired boy's and leads him into the room.

"Besides," he adds with a cocky smile, "you are so hopelessly in love with me, I don't think it's even possible." He chuckles as Keith glares at him through narrowed eyes. "Don't fret Mr. Grumpy Pants, I don't know how the hell it happened but the feeling is mutual."

"Hey!"

"I mean, you are beautiful… But no matter how you look at it," Lance continues as he gestures to Keith's hair, "it's still a mullet…"

Keith laughs and punches him in the shoulder. "You love my hair! You wrote a drunken poem about it!"

"Don't remember, didn't happen."

"Jerk," he says as he pushes Lance on to the bed, climbs on top of him and kisses him.

Lance runs his hand through Keith's hair and hums against his mouth.

 _This_ , Keith thinks, as happiness spreads inside him. _I can't allow this to vanish._

* * *

They are lying in a field of forget-me-nots. The ground is almost as blue as the cloudless sky and Keith never wants to wake up from this dream.

"Is this your doing?" Lance asks as he plucks one flower. Neither the flower nor the sky can compete with the blue of his eyes, Keith thinks.

"I miss you," he replies.

"And how do you manage to do that, when I don't even exist?"

Keith sits up and pulls Lance to him, to rest his head in his lap. He plays with the messy brown hair as Lance practically purrs.

"I don't know," Keith says. "I just know something is not right. I don't know you when I wake up. Nobody does." His hands stop their movement through Lance's hair and his voice comes out bitter as he says, "Just like you wanted."

"It'll pass," Lance says. "This reality will take root, and you won't feel that way anymore. You'll be alright." He sighs. He doesn't know that for sure, not at all, but he knows Keith needs to move on. " _That_ 's what I wanted."

"We are _not_ alright! We are a mess, even the lions. We don't make sense anymore, every one of us feels _that_ if nothing else. Sometimes…" he stops, lets out a breath and continues, his voice thick with emotion. "Sometimes I think it would have been better if we were given a chance to grieve. Then I could at least keep my memories."

Lance turns to his side, brushing his fingers along the blue petals. "It wasn't an option."

"Then I will stay here."

Lance sits up, his eyes wide. "How can you even say that? They need you!"

He can't say how much he wishes Keith could stay, or he could go back and be with them again. How much he wishes to see his family, and how much it hurts they don't even know his name now. And he can't bear to say that he feels all that because Keith keeps calling him back, keeps finding him. He can't tell him how painful it is, when he doesn't even have the concept of time anymore, and when he hurts, he hurts always.

He can't tell him that he still allows Keith to find him every time, despite the pain.

Keith scoffs. "They need _me_? Do you even know who I am in a world where you don't exist? Because I don't!"

"Oh don't be so dramatic, mullet-man. I doubt whatever impact I had on you amounted to a character defining moment. You'll still be the hotheaded, unfairly gifted, fierce and loyal emo you have always been. I mean I like how you overestimate me, but don't go underestimating yourself."

Keith looks away. "I am not the same," is all that he says. He feels heavy now, and his vision starts getting blurry. He knows what's happening, and he tries to hold on but it is futile.

Lance strokes his cheek and plants a kiss on top of his head. Keith thinks he hears Lance reciting a poem as he laughs and fades away.

He opens his eyes and realizes he is on the sofa in the castle lounge. Next thing he notices is Shiro standing over him, his expression tight and his eyes fixed on something.

"Keith," he says, voice low and cautious.

Keith follows Shiro's gaze to the crystal he has in his hand, emitting a glow bright enough to wash the entire room blue.

"What the quiznak is _that_?"


	4. Chapter 4

The paladins and Coran are gathered around the protective barrier that is currently casing the blue crystal.

Keith is inexplicably distraught at the sight of his friends scrutinizing the stone, which had lost its glow for a while now. He doesn't know how, but he knows it doesn't pose a danger to anyone. He dares not say it out loud however; neither does he say that he doesn't like to be separated from it.

"You had it with you all this time," Shiro says.

Keith knows he is disappointed, he can see it in the thin line forming between his brows, and in the frown he is trying to hide. The man is too considerate for his own good, and Keith can't help but love him for it.

"Why didn't you say anything Keith?" he continues, brows raised and palms open. "You would be the first to get suspicious about an unidentified object. And you say you found it where the druid fell."

"It doesn't give off any alarming signals," Pidge says as she leans in to take a closer look at the stone. "It is not broadcasting our location, or sending any sort of information to any recipient." She pulls up the diagnostics screen and hums. "I don't know how you got it to glow like it did, I exposed it to any element I could think of and it still didn't react."

"It is not a toy!"

Every head in the room turns to Keith. He realizes he has raised his voice and unclenches his fists, but doesn't back down.

"If you think it might be dangerous, why did you let her experiment with it?" he asks accusingly, looking at Shiro and Allura.

Shiro crosses his arms over his chest and Hunk opens his mouth in Pidge's defense, but the green paladin is already in Keith's face.

"You don't think I know what I am doing?" she hisses. "You are the one who potentially endangered everyone on this ship by bringing it here and not saying anything!"

"It is not dangerous! I had it for weeks and no harm came to anyone!"

"Except making you go all Gollum about it! Maybe it has telepathic abilities, affects your mind slowly. Wouldn't really be a surprise, considering what the druids are capable of. What if it is a failsafe for Haggar? How could you even risk her coming back?"

Her words are thrown at Keith like tiny but sharp blades, and defense is not his strongest point. If he is being attacked, Keith would attack back; this is how he operates.

Honey colored eyes behind the large glasses hold a stubborn challenge, one Keith is familiar with. _She is not the enemy,_ he reminds himself.

"Since when are you a conspiracy theorist?" he asks.

Pidge draws back. "Since my father and brother were taken and everyone lied about the whole thing," she says. "How are _you_ not one?"

Keith feels guilty at that, he knows she has a point. He knows getting her family back doesn't automatically erase trauma and make her into a trusting individual. He imagines it would be scary, when you have a brilliant mind like Pidge's, a mind that can consider a million dark probabilities.

Still, he can't bring himself to take a step back. It is almost like they are ganging up on him, all of them as a unit, and him on his own. Somehow it makes him feel so very lonely.

"I—"

Allura's eyes meet Shiro's and she lets out a defeated sigh. "Paladins please," she says, getting between Pidge and Keith. "I know we all have been under a lot stress lately, but we shouldn't take it out on each other." She looks at the crystal, which gives off the illusion that blue lights are swirling inside it. It is just a piece stone, it doesn't really look like anything special; but Allura has to admit something about it is quite pretty, and she almost understands Keith's attachment to it.

"Coran," she says as the orange haired man flitters around the barrier, trying to view the stone from different angles. He bends over and leans in close enough for his nose to be plastered against the barrier, blinking.

"Do you have any idea what this could be?" Allura asks.

Coran straightens up in one theatrical jump. "Seems like a regular piece of crystal," he replies, "but regular stones don't glow like that of course. I've only seen glowing crystals in the caverns of Pollux' smallest moon when King Alfor sent us on a top secret recon mission! It would have been a great success, if only we weren't attacked by horned crimgleflabbers, and they are the most vicious of all crimgleflabbers I have to say, especially when it is the 5th quintant of—"

"Coran," Allura says sweetly with a murderous look in her eyes. "The crystal?"

"Ahem. Yes, those crystals glowed naturally, not like this tricky little one here which only glows when it pleases."

"So we got nothing," Hunk says. "Maybe it needs to be next to a sleeping person? And did it do anything, other than glowing? I mean was it warm, or making sounds, anything other than emitting light? Did you feel anything weird when you saw it?" Question is directed at Shiro, who shakes his head.

"I mean," he says after a moment, "It was… nice."

Now all eyes are on him, waiting for an explanation. He glances away as he sees Keith looking at him with wide eyes.

"I don't know guys," he says. He wasn't planning to mention this, but now it seems significant. "It was like the feeling you get when you go home after a long trip? Calm and safe... I don't know."

Hunk turns to Keith. "Is that what you felt too?" he asks.

Keith slowly shakes his head. "When I keep it on me, it is like a part of me," he says. "But when Shiro found me, and it was glowing," he pauses. He is not good with expressing things like this, it is personal and somehow admitting it feels like a weakness. He glimpses at the crystal and sighs. "I had the same feeling I used to get when my dad came home after work," he finishes, avoiding eye contact.

Pidge's expression softens. "We don't have any data suggesting it is malevolent," she says. "Maybe we should observe it again, like Hunk said, it could be triggered by sleep."

Keith catches her eye and gives her a weak smile. "I volunteer?" he suggests.

* * *

Oriande watches Lance walking on the railings of the bridge leading to the castle of lions, trying to keep balance with his arms stretched out to the sides. He looks at her and she gives him a smile.

Lance closes his eyes, looks up, takes a deep breath and lets himself fall backwards.

He finds himself on his childhood bed, in the little room he shared with his brother Marco. The ceiling is covered with glow in the dark stars, posters hanging on the walls, books and clothes thrown haphazardly on the beds and all over the floor. He wonders if Marco had it all to himself in this altered reality, and if he still bumps his leg against the corner of their small desk every time he is making his way to the wardrobe.

"Hey Oriande?" he calls; and she is sitting at the desk, lavender eyes roaming around the room.

Lance sits cross legged on the bed and hugs himself. "Since you found me," he begins, "I can't forget. I can't forget anything, anyone. Why is that?"

Oriande does not reply, but her eyes soften with sympathy. "Tell me about the boy," she says instead.

Lance tightens his arms around himself. "It hurts," he replies. "It hurts to talk about him. About any of them. It hurts to remember." He looks around, spotting as single sock on the floor with milky way pattern. A birthday gift from Rachel. "It hurts to be here," he whispers. "It makes me angry, Oriande. I don't want to be angry, I just want them safe."

"I know."

"I thought I would disappear. That's what Haggar said. That I would not exist." He exhales and gestures to himself with both hands. " _This_ kinda feels like existing to me."

He stands on the bed and peels one of the stars off the ceiling. Oriande reaches out, and he places it in her palm.

"Is it really because of him? Because he won't let go?"

Oriande holds the star between her thumb and index finger. It glows, and she smiles.

"Partly," she says, but doesn't elaborate further. Lance doesn't ask her to either.

It is a silent understanding, because they both know hope can be cruel.

"Can you tell me about you?" he asks.

Oriande smiles brightly and throws the star in the air. Lance looks up to see countless stars, and he is among them, swimming in the night sky. Maybe he is one of them.

"They called us the lifegivers," Oriande says. Lance is sure he heard this word before. "The mortals," Oriande continues. "Our kind was few, in comparison. But we always were. Not like them, who had beginnings and ends, transformations.

"So when mortals first came to be, there were huge discussions around meddling, interfering with different life forms. But we were all fascinated." She extends her fingers and moves her hands as if she's playing an invisible piano. "One of us more than others."

Lance follows the movement of her fingers, to see the constellation she painted with the stars. It looks like a lioness.

"She was always the impulsive one," Oriande says, then winces and corrects herself, "She _is_."

Lance smiles, now both of them wearing the same wistful expression. He has some experience with impulsive ones himself.

"She didn't understand why we wouldn't ease their pain when we easily could."

They are now walking down a path, lined with purple bushes at both sides. The path is a glossy black like some kind of glass, but Lance realizes it is actually soft, kind of like walking on a carpet. He also notices that some of the bushes have flowers on them, which could be close relatives of juniberries. Lance suspects they are the reason why the air smells so sweet.

"Altea could be very black and white sometimes," Oriande adds.

"The planet?"

"The person."

* * *

Keith is at the Garrison, sitting at his desk, his head resting on his crossed arms. Other cadets start arriving, and he can hear the chairs being pulled, the chatter, the small chaos before their instructor comes in.

One dramatically high pitched voice catches his attention, as it always does. Lance McClain.

The unintentional class clown.

The paladin of the Blue Lion.

The paladin of the Red Lion.

Keith's self-proclaimed rival.

His friend, his constant, the keeper of his damaged heart.

Keith tries to lift his head, but it feels very heavy. He opens his eyes, but his vision is blurry, like he's looking through a fogged up glass. He can't move his body, and his pulse starts quickening with dread. _Help_ , he wants to say, but no sound comes out. _Lance._

He is falling. Keith can't move, he can't speak and he can't see, but he knows Lance is falling.

He desperately tries to reach out, tries to grab a hold of his arm so he can pull him back in, he can say "I got you," like he has so many times before.

But he hasn't got him. Lance falls. Lance walks into the light. Lance chooses to disappear.

 _I love you._

Keith finds his voice, and he screams.

He is startled by a hand on his shoulder. He opens his eyes, blinks and throws a punch at the face before him before he collapses to his knees.

Lance rubs his cheekbone, opening and closing his mouth to test his jaw, surprised he can still get physically hurt. He guesses it must be because he expected it to hurt. Apparently he is not great at letting go either.

He helps Keith up and says, "Yeah, I missed you too."

They look at each other, both stunned and a bit awkward. It is like it has always been, neither of them ever sure where they stand with each other, no matter what they have been through. Lance thinks maybe this is why sometimes their kisses kept feeling like a first kiss, all over again. They would have gotten there eventually. Probably. If only they had more time.

But things being as they are now, it always takes one of them to make a move, to jump start the connection again. And that's where they never fail. One of them always makes a move.

This time it is Lance. He tentatively cups Keith's face and leans in, takes his upper lip between his. He savors the softness and the warmth that surrounds his mouth as Keith responds.

The way Keith knows him is in the way he kisses him. It is a reassuring mess, as if he can't decide where to start, because he wants all parts of Lance equally. It is as if Keith designs his kisses to make sure that Lance knows just how wanted he is.

And Lance knows. He also knows how much Keith hates him and loves him at the moment. He understands. He would too, if it had been Keith who made the sacrifice.

He had thought he would spare them the pain. But Keith has always been one stubborn dumbass.

How strange it is that they would end up in each other's arms, and how strange it is that against all odds, it feels so right.

* * *

 _Lance has noticed Keith before._

 _He is the weird, angry kid with no friends. Lance doesn't pay him any mind, instinctively staying away from the boy just like everyone else does._

 _It is not until Takashi Shirogane shows up at the Garrison that Lance and everyone else take notice, and not all in a good way._

 _Lance runs the simulator, and while he is not the best, he believes he did alright. He's feeling good about himself._

 _Then Shiro asks Keith to give it a try, so Keith does._

 _Lance watches as Keith completes level after level, without breaking a sweat. His heart in his throat by the end of it, and his hands balled into fists. He feels nauseated. His eyes are stinging. He is so,_ so _angry._

 _Yes, some others also have done better but Lance knows he can close those gaps easily._

 _In Keith's case however, he sees exactly where he is. He sees no amount of practice will get him to where Keith stands._

 _This is everything he wants, everything he works for, and some kid with bad attitude is just_ gifted _with this innate talent for_ his _passion. It hurts._

 _He just envies, his insides twisting. Why him? Why couldn't that be Lance?_

Being a cargo pilot is just as important, _his mom says. Lance isn't old enough to detect the guilty relief in her voice. Maybe they are not at war, but it is still military and her baby won't be in the thick of it if worst comes to worst._ Cargo pilots are just as essential. They are just as much needed.

Like toilet cleaners, _Lance's self-deprecating mind supplies. It is true, they are needed. Lance just wishes he was needed on a fighter class craft's cockpit instead._

 _It all makes him feel so small, so insignificant and invisible._

Well _, he thinks._ I guess I'll have to make myself visible.

 _The 14 year old Lance doesn't understand how lucky he is. He is unconditionally loved and supported. He has his safety net in place, his family, somewhere he can fall back to if everything else crumbles down around him._

 _He takes it all for granted, because he is a teenager and that's what most teenagers do; unless they have a reason not to._

 _ _-o-o-o-__

 _Keith is familiar with those reasons. He has been familiar with them since his dad talked about his mom. He never took his father granted, but it still didn't keep him from leaving. Dying. Leaving. Sometimes it all feels same._

 _Keith is in the class, in his seat by the window, watching the sky and not paying attention to the instructor. Shiro is gone. He doesn't know what to do. He is lost, and he is terrified._

 _The annoying cargo pilot's laugh gets him out of his head. He looks at the boy, whose head is thrown back as he half-laughs-half-howls, baring his smooth tan neck._

 _The girl next to the boy pokes him and points to the instructor, now coming his way. He regains composure and gulps, blue eyes widened and hair messy._

" _Cadet McClain," the instructor says, voice unamused._

 _Keith goes back to watching the skies as the boy clumsily tries to charm his way out of the situation._

McClain _, the name echoes in Keith's mind. For a brief moment, he thinks how it would be like to be him._

 _Loud and obnoxious, without a care in the world._

 _But Shiro is gone. They say he is dead. They say it was his fault._

'Pilot error.'

 _Shiro does not make pilot errors._

 _Keith doesn't take things for granted. He knows what's important. Yes, he loves flying, and Shiro's words still ring in his head from time to time: '_ What you decide to do with this potential is up to you.'

 _He wants to fly away. To discover what's beyond, to leave it all behind. But if he had wings, he would break them, tear them off himself it meant he could get Shiro back._

 _And that's precisely what he does, albeit metaphorically, when h_ _e starts making his way to Iverson's office later, ignoring all the eyes on him._

 _-o-o-o-_

 _Lance is talking to the cute engineer with chocolate skin in the hall, grateful to Hunk who had introduced them._

 _They chat idly about their instructors, how tough their classes are, Lance makes jokes and she laughs. It is so effortlessly nice._

 _Then her gaze drifts off, distracted, and Lance follows it to see she's looking at Keith. He moves like a force of nature, wearing his usual pissed off expression, stomping his way across the hall._

 _Lance's mood sours immediately._

 _He is about to say something to the girl, snap at her more like, along the lines of 'so, the mullet does it for ya?'_

 _But the girl huffs, shaking her head. "What a weirdo," she says._

 _Lance asks her out._

 _ _-o-o-o-__

 _Keith punches Iverson in the face when he doesn't get the answers he's looking for. He knows when he is being lied to. It is a skill gained growing up in the system._

 _He is promptly expelled._

 _Nowadays when Keith thinks about that specific slice of time, he admits maybe there could have been other ways to get what he wanted._

 _Take Pidge, for instance. She was right under their noses the whole time, fooling the Garrison, using their own resources against them._

 _But then again, if the person he is now was lied to about Shiro's disappearance, Keith is pretty sure his reaction would have been the same. Ah well._

 _Some things just don't change, he guesses._

 _ _-o-o-o-__

 _Lance's fling with the engineer girl doesn't last long. Turns out she is not_ that _into bitching about Kogane, who got very publicly kicked out and almost forgotten a week later._

 _Lance is relieved when it is over with Jenny. He knows he had liked her, he had felt the butterflies when she was around; but he is also aware that the fluttering had vanished when they saw Keith that day in the hall. The day he was gone._

 _He has no idea what to make of that._

* * *

Keith wakes up with a gasp. He is lying on a bed in the medical bay, next to the healing pods.

Everything is blue. The crystal is in his hand.

When the blue starts fading and his vision clears, he sees Pidge sitting on a bed across his, wiping her eyes. Has she been crying?

Before he can ask, Pidge cuts him off.

"Who's Lance?" she asks, as the others come in. "You kept saying the name in your sleep."

They hold each other's gazes for a moment, and Keith opens his mouth.

He has nothing. He lets out a shaky breath, and Pidge deflates.

"I don't know."

He turns around and searches the other faces in the room. All look blank, but then he spots Coran, the Altean's eyes darting between him and the crystal.

"Never heard the name," he says, "but I can dig into the old archives, see if there's any mention of a correlation between crystals and lances!"

"Coran—" Allura starts, but he is out of the med bay before she even gets to the second syllable.

"So, what the cheese was _that_ about?" Hunk asks, staring after Coran as Shiro sits next to Keith on his bed.

Pidge shrugs, but still seems distraught. Keith takes a mental note to ask her about that later.

Allura lets out a loud, exasperated sigh.

"I suppose I should find out."


End file.
